Dominus Dixit Ad Me…
December 25, 2009
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Churchman of the Year
December 23, 2009To me, there is one clear answer: Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin.
During a turbulent year in Ireland, with report after report detailing the appalling record of abuse and cover-up within the Irish church, archbishop Martin has been unwavering in his call for reform and victim support. His policy of transparency led to the bizarre situation of his predecessor, Cardinal Connell, suing him in an Irish court. He made no secret of his disgust with his fellow bishops and chancery officials who perpetuated the cover up and ignored the problem of predator priests. And now, after the Murphy report into his own Dublin diocese, Martin publicly called for the resignation of four bishops, two of them his auxiliaries, and two of them former auxiliaries – this came after the resignation of bishop Murray of Limerick, another ex-Dublin auxiliary. Martin said that these four did not resign, he would petition the Congregation of Bishops to remove them. Since then, one of the four has resigned.
This is the kind of leadership sorely needed by the Irish church. One of Martin’s great themes is that the Church has lost the confidence of the Irish people, especially the young people. He knows the Church needs to regain their trust, and that this will be an uphill battle. He realizes that the Irish Catholic Church must not only confront the grave errors of the past, but also engage openly on the pressing cultural issues of the day. It needs to cast off the cultural Jansenism that has enshrouded it for decades.
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Pro-Choice Health Policy Expert Says Nelson Just as “Bad” as Stupak
December 22, 2009From Sara Rosenbaum, Chair of the Department of Health Policy at GWU:
“Taken together, the provisions of the amendment can be expected to have a significant impact on the ability or willingness of insurance issuers to offer Exchange products that cover a full range of medically indicated abortions. Furthermore, as with insurance laws generally, and for the reasons stated in our earlier analysis, the amendment could be anticipated to have considerable spillover effects. This is because companies that issue insurance products (or administered products in the case of sales to self-insured plans) obviously desire to sell these products in as many markets as possible. If one purchaser market places significant restrictions on one or more aspects of product design, it is likely that sellers will attempt to design their products to a common denominator, so that the product can be sold across all markets in which the company desires to do business. This is particularly true with modern health insurance coverage products, where the concern is not only the coverage but the provider network through which coverage will be obtained. Negotiating the elements of such a product is extremely difficult, and it is just as difficult to have to explain to providers that some of their patients will be insured for certain medical procedures while others will not.”
How ironic this is – if this bill passes, we will see the first attempt to regulate the ability of private insurance companies to fund abortion from peoples’ premiums.
And by the way, this is at least as morally serious as the indirect transfer of money to abortion-funding insurance companies through the tax system. But while all eyes are on the latter, nobody has ever seemed to care much about the former. And even here, some “pro-life” groups have carved out even finer distinctions, arguing that it is fine for Medicaid to fund abortions from tax revenue collected by the state, but not by the federal government.
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Nelson Compromise – Sell-out or Stroke of Genius?
December 19, 2009I’m reluctant to comment on something without knowing too much about the details. This morning, it seems that Ben Nelson has become the 60th vote for health care reform, which I regard as good news indeed. What remains murky is the abortion compromise he negotiated, given that he had rejected earlier compromises based on segregation of funds. It seems that the big thing is that states will be allowed to prohibit plans that offer abortion from participating in the exchanges that operate in their states. The difference is that Stupak would have applied this nationally.
Already, I see some of the usual suspects using the language of treason (it’s always a dark dualistic world for them, isn’t it?). But here’s the deal. The main objection to subsidized health care plans that offer abortion was that it would lead to a great expansion in abortion rates. I’m not convinced at all, but let’s go with it. If this expansion in abortion is in proportion to current abortion rates, then the Nelson language would not make much difference, as the large states that account for the most abortions would still allow coverage of abortion.
Does this ring any bells? It should. It is one of the main criticisms of the pro-life movement’s sole focus on eliminating Roe v. Wade and the fetishization of abortion industry subsidiarity. Here is the language of none other than archbishop Chaput of Denver:
““Roe is bad law. As long as it stands, it prevents returning the abortion issue to the states where it belongs, so that the American people can decide its future through fair debate and legislation.”
Now, can’t the same argument be made with the Nelson compromise? It sounds to me like if you are arguing that this is a chimera, and that moving the decision to the states will make no difference at all, then you are implicitly also criticizing the all-eggs-in-one-Roe-basket strategy? At the very least, expect some cognitive dissonance…
Update: If you want to comment, and you disagree with me, first tell me whether you would support this reform with ironclad abortion protections. I’m not giving any soapboxes to laissez-faire liberals to exploit the unborn for their own ends.
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More on the Deficit
December 18, 2009I’ve talked about this before, but this nice chart really puts the whole thing in perspective:
What this shows of course, is that the large deficit mainly reflects the unpaid-for policies of the Bush years – war and tax cuts. If we had entered this recession close to balance, we could have fought the recession more effectively by accommodating the increase in the deficit due to the downturn and complementing it with a bigger stimulus. As it was, we were burdened by the heavy yoke of the Bush years. Remember that next time some Republican or ill-informed fellow-traveler complains about “Obama’s deficit”.
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Pope’s Strong Statement on the Environment
December 16, 2009It seems as if Pope Benedict is devoting his entire World Day of Peace address this year to environmental issues. It is called If You Want To Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation. May his words be heard and heeded by world leaders as they gather in Copenhagen, as this is a timely address. Here are some highlights:
“In 1990 John Paul II had spoken of an “ecological crisis” and … pointed to the “urgent moral need for a new solidarity”. His appeal is all the more pressing today, in the face of signs of a growing crisis which it would be irresponsible not to take seriously. Can we remain indifferent before the problems associated with such realities as climate change, desertification, the deterioration and loss of productivity in vast agricultural areas, the pollution of rivers and aquifers, the loss of biodiversity, the increase of natural catastrophes and the deforestation of equatorial and tropical regions? Can we disregard the growing phenomenon of “environmental refugees”, people who are forced by the degradation of their natural habitat to forsake it – and often their possessions as well – in order to face the dangers and uncertainties of forced displacement? Can we remain impassive in the face of actual and potential conflicts involving access to natural resources? All these are issues with a profound impact on the exercise of human rights, such as the right to life, food, health and development.
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Health Reform is About Saving Lives
December 14, 2009Between 2000-06, about 137,000 people died because they did not have adequate health insurance. For a country as rich as the United States, this is a grave scandal – and one made all the worse by the massive amounts of money devoted to the military. Ezra Klein does a quick and dirty calculation, estimating that at least 150,000 lives would be saved by this health insurance bill. At the very least.
He concludes:
“All this is intuitive. The uninsured are less likely to seek early care. They are less likely to get good care. They are less likely to return for follow-up care. They are less likely to be able to afford the maintenance of chronic conditions. At its most basic level, that’s what this is all about. That’s why people have been fighting for universal health care for almost a century now. That’s why this matters, and why the basics of the bill — subsidized access to health-care insurance — are so terribly important. This is life and, well, death. Lots of it, in fact.”
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The Answer to Afghanistan
December 4, 2009“Never again war!. No, never again war, which destroys the lives of innocent people, teaches how to kill, throws into upheaval even the lives of those who do the killing and leaves behind a trail of resentment and hatred, thus making it all the more difficult to find a just solution of the very problems which provoked the war. Just as the time has finally come when in individual States a system of private vendetta and reprisal has given way to the rule of law, so too a similar step forward is now urgently needed in the international community. Furthermore, it must not be forgotten that at the root of war there are usually real and serious grievances: injustices suffered, legitimate aspirations frustrated, poverty, and the exploitation of multitudes of desperate people who see no real possibility of improving their lot by peaceful means.
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Health Reform Bill Lowers Premiums
December 3, 2009
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Averting a Meltdown
December 1, 2009It’s more than a year now since Lehman collapsed and the global economy went into tailspin. Memories tend to be short, but it’s worth recalling quite how serious the situation was back then. Take a look at this chart:
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Quote of the Day
November 29, 2009“It’s staggering really that modern American Christianism supports wealth while Jesus demanded total poverty, fetishizes family while Jesus left his and urged his followers to abandon wives, husbands and children, champions politics while Jesus said his kingdom was emphatically not of this world, defends religious war where Jesus sought always peace, and backs torture, which is what the Romans did to Jesus. At some point these charlatans need to be chased out of the temple. Which these days means the Republican party.”
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Congratulations, Mr. President!
November 23, 2009Although it largely went below the radar in the United States, the European Union passed another milestone with the selection of Herman Van Rompuy as its first president (well, technically he’s president of the European Council!). Van Rompuy is the Christian Democratic former prime minister of Belgium, a man who is committed to Catholicism and European integration. In this, he follows in the footsteps of the great Christian Democrats who came before him, people like Adenauer, Schuman, and de Gespari. As Austen Ivereigh notes, this is a man who once gave a talk on Caritas in Veritate, and made the following remarks:
“According to [Catholic] social doctrine, the political community is at the service of the civil society from which it is born. Civil society represents the sum total of the goods, cultural or relational, which are relatively independent of politics and the economy. The state should make sure that the legal framework allows the social actors (societies, associations, organisations, and so on) to carry out their activities in total freedom; it should be ready to intervene, only if needed and in conformity with the principle of subsidiarity, in order that the interaction between freedom of association and the democratic way leads in the direction of the common good.”
Could you imagine an American political leader, of any party, giving such a speech? There is really no authentic Christian Democratic tradition in the United States, merely two variants of liberalism. What many forget is that the European Union was a fundamentally Catholic idea, twinning anti-nationalist instincts with notions of subsidiarity. We should support it.
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Truth Doesn’t Matter Much to Nihilists
November 22, 2009From John McCain:
“I remain committed to opposing any bill that puts your health care decisions in the hands of government bureaucrats while adding more than a trillion dollars to our country’s deficit. Taxpayers simply cannot afford this government takeover of our health care system and this is our opportunity to put an end to it.”
To which Ezra Klein asks the obvious:
“That’s interesting, I guess, but what about the bill being considered by the Senate, which cuts $130 billion from our country’s deficit and leaves health-care decisions exactly where they are now, wherever that might be?”
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Let’s Get a Few Things Straight (Yet More on Abortion and Health Insurance)
November 20, 2009I’m going to repeat some things that I think need repeating. I’ve seen far too much fuzzy logic on the relationship between the taxpayer and abortion.
The basic premise is that we want to erect as high a wall as possible between each and every abortion and taxpayer involvement. A worthy aim, even if the taxpayer is complicit in other morally dubious acts, especially related to military spending – but I’ll let that pass for now. But if we think there is no subsidization of abortion today, we are kidding ourselves. The famous Guttmacher study showed that 13 percent of abortions are billed to medicaid, about the same as to private insurers – clearly, the Hyde rule can be bypassed quite easily at the state level. This is a direct relationship. More indirectly, the government provides funds to Planned Parenthood, on the understanding that this money does not fund abortion. But again, if you use the fungibility argument that many are using in the current debate, then this practice too is unacceptable. Medicare doesn’t fund abortions of course, but it makes payments to plenty of hospitals that do.
And I have not even mentioned the elephant in the room. Every year, the government spends $250 billion to make employer-sponsored health insurance tax-free. This is an indirect subsidy, but still a subsidy, and a huge one at that. And since private insurance coverage of abortion is widespread, this amounts to the indirect subsidization of abortion on a huge scale. Why do we not hear much about this? Largely, because people don’t understand the economic nature of a subsidy, which is to change the relative price of some good, making it cheaper than it otherwise would be.
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Joseph Cao, Ignatian Spirituality, and Health Care
November 18, 2009From an incredible interview with National Jesuit News:
“I still use the Ignatian methods almost every day, from examination of conscience back to the methods of the 30 day retreat. I do that very often. Using the whole process of discernment to see where the Sprit is moving me has been extremely important, especially in my recent decision to support the health care reform plan. The Jesuit emphasis on social justice, the fact that we have to advocate for the poor, for the widow, for those who cannot help themselves, plays a very significant part. But at the end of the day, I believe that it’s up to, at least from my perspective, understanding what does my conscience say, how is the Spirit moving me. I use that almost every day in my decision making process. The issues that we contend with in Congress affect every single person here in the United States, so I want to make sure that my decisions are based on good principals and good morals.
For example, right before the [health care] vote, I actually went to Mass and I prayed. And the theme of the day was one of the readings from Isaiah. The priest gave the homily about be not afraid, so I really felt a personal touch during this homily, that this homily was meant for me. I was going through a lot of turmoil, debating on what was the right decision, knowing the fact that if I were to vote ‘yes’, I would be the most hated Republican in the country. [laughs]. So, it was a tough discernment process but I felt during the Mass that it was speaking directly to me. It gave me the strength to say ‘yes, you have to make the right decision’ and ‘be not afraid’ to do it because ‘I will go before you’ so that is why I supported the bill knowing the fact that I would be the only one.”
Hat tip: Fr. James Martin.
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More on Abortion in Health Insurance
November 17, 2009This debate is moving into a rather fascinating area. Until this debate, I knew nothing about the extent to which private insurance companies paid for abortion. I admit it. If you told me it was never covered, I would have believed it. And the vehemence of the opposition to abortion coverage in plans in the exchange suggested that it was rare, if not non-existent, in the private sector.
Except that it isn’t. We have entered a phase in the debate whereby people are arguing over private coverage of abortion. The source of the data is the Guttmacher Institute. They claim that 87 percent of employer-based insurance plans cover some form of abortion, and they say specifically that plans that restrict their coverage to the hard cases (rape, incest, life of mother) are rare. On the other hand, Guttmacher says that only 13 percent of abortions are directly billed by abortion providers to private insurance companies. There could be many reasons for the difference, including restrictions in the plan, the private nature of abortion, and seeking reimbursement directlty.
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From the Pulpit in DC
November 16, 2009In all likelihood, you know by now about the rift between the archdiocese of Washington and the DC city council over what the latter thinks is an issue of gay rights, but really relates to religious freedom. First off, the Church really needs some better communications people. The archdiocese got killed in the media over this. Why? The Washington Post spun it as the Church punishing the homeless because they hate gay people. Cue, the big bad Catholic church, the inquisition, and the nazi pope. Of course, if a Post reporter ventured into one of the many black baptist churches in southeast DC, I’m pretty sure he or she would hear far more aggressive rhetoric against homosexuality, but the Post will never go there, will it?
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Marx Criticizes Capitalism
November 13, 2009OK, the Marx in question is not Karl (or Groucho for that matter), but the archbishop of Munich and Freising, Reinhard Marx. According to John Allen, he had some choice words for the American right. Asked about the peculiar inclination of American neo-conservatives to reflexively oppose government involvement in the marekt, he noted that while the Church supported “freedom, democracy, and pluralism,” that position “has nothing to do with reducing Christianity to religious ideology propping up the market economy.” Somebody tell Michael Novak.
He also makes a point close to my heart: “[Capitalism] doesn’t conserve social and cultural situations as it found them, it changes them and often distorts them by introducing new paradigms and clichés.” Indeed, what the neo-cons claim as conservative dogma is really a reflection of radical individualism, a bastard child of the enlightenment, and condemned by the Church alongside radical collectivism as the “twin rocks of shipwreck“. As many will no doubt note, the Church does not condemn the free market per se. That is true. But the market must be underpinned by caritas, by solidarity, by respect for each and every person. A reflexive stance against “big government” in favor of “individual freedom” strays from these values. What is really a means to an end becomes a rigid ideology. And I believe it is this rigid ideology that turns archbishop Marx against the American neo-conservative position.
Marx also praises the social market. He claimed that ”it’s part of the solution to the problem” and that what saved Germany during the recent global economic crisis is “a welfare state that works: insurance for the unemployed, benefits for those laid off, support for those with odd jobs, public health care.” This is the foundation of social democracy and indeed, christian democracy. This kind of statement would not be news to Catholics in any country outside the United States, but as American Catholics have drifted ever further from their roots toward the dominant individualist ethic, toward the dominant Protestant culture, this divergence is bound to happen.
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Yeah, Republicans Are Clearly Against Abortion Above All Else…
November 12, 2009From Brad Dayspring, spokesman for Minority Whip Eric Cantor:
“If defeating Stupak wouldn’t [have changed] the outcome on Saturday, then it is clearly evident that having it in and sparking a civil war amongst the Democrats is the best way to stop the overall bill.”
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Next Steps on Healthcare
November 9, 2009We are now in a position where the House has passed a healthcare bill that is pretty much as good as it gets at this point. Aside from adopting the Stupak amendment, which provides ironclad protection against the subsidization of abortion, this bill is better than its Senate alternative in terms of subsidies, in terms of coverage, in terms of the public option, in terms of the employer mandate. While both bills pay for themselves, reducing the deficit, the House bill does it in the fairest way – by adding a surtax on those making more than a million dollars a year. This is in line with the principle of solidarity and is especially appropriate at a time when income inequality has returned to the levels of the gilded age.
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Taxpayer Funding Immoral Activity
November 6, 2009We all know that a big issue relates to the proposed subsidization of individual health insurance plans in the exchange, some of which might cover abortion. The debate resolves around how best to minimize the proximity of taxpayer funds to every occasion of abortion, with the proviso that the procedure will remain legal. It’s tricky. But when we get deeper into this issue, we can go far further than abortion (there is a curious tendency among some to begin and end every discussion of morality with abortion).
I’m talking here about the single largest item in the federal budget – defense and military spending. Even if you accept the premise that funding a military in itself is not immoral, you cannot get past the fact that you are most certainly funding activities that are indeed immoral. The Iraq war was immoral. The continued accumulation of nuclear weapons is immoral. Torture is intrinsically evil – and yet the taxpayer under the Bush administration at least was paying for the various CIA programs that tortured people. Where were the calls of conscientious Catholics to de-fund these activities at that time? And what about the $3 billion a year flowing from the American taxpayer to the Israeli military, as it commits war crimes in Gaza?
Yes, the funding of the abortion merely begins the debate, doesn’t it? And for that matter, let’s talk about conscience protections too. The church also supports selective conscientious objection in the military. How come we don’t hear about this so much?
13 Comments | Abortion, Morning's Minion, War and Peace, war | Permalink
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The Republican Healthcare Plan
November 5, 2009I suppose the good news is that the party of nihilism actually came up with an alternative healthcare plan. But that’s it for the good news. It’s all down here from there. The CBO has scored the GOP proposal, and the results are not good. See Jon Cohn and Ezra Klein for the gory details. In a nutshell, the plan would not deal with the problem of the uninsured at all – ten years into implementation, 52 million people would be uninsured.
OK, but it saves money by insuring fewer people, right? Wrong. The Republican plan will reduce the deficit by $68 billion over the next ten years. The Democratic plan will cut the deficit by $104 billion over this period. So, let’s sum up – the Democratic bill covers 12 times as many people and saves $36 billion extra!
Republicans are trumpeting that premiums are lower, and that’s true – but it’s barely significant for the vast majority on employer-based insurance (0-3 percent reduction for insurance through large employers). There is no comparison to make here, as the CBO’s estimates of the impact on premiums of the Democratic plan are not done yet. But I can probably guess the direction! Another point worth noting – one of the reasons premiums fall in the Republican plan is because there will be less medical care provided, not because the cost of provision is lower. Oh, I almost forgot – Republicans would still let insurance companies penalize people (refuse or drop coverage, charge exorbitant premiums) for pre-existing conditions.
Perhaps I absolved them of the charge of nihilism too soon…
52 Comments | Health Care, Healthcare, Morning's Minion | Permalink
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Abortion and Health Insurance
November 3, 2009This is a tricky topic, and I’ve seen so many confusing and misleading statements on it. Much of it comes from not thinking carefully enough about how health insurance works. Let me try to describe the coverage of abortion in five hypothetical systems, all mirroring real world examples. Let us assume that the legal status of abortion is the same in each country. And let us assume that all countries have universal coverage.
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All Soul’s Day Meditation
November 2, 2009Fr. Robert Imbelli provides this gem from the man formerly known as Joseph Ratzinger:
“The Body of Christ” means that all human beings are one organism, the destiny of the whole the proper destiny of each. True enough, the decisive outcome of each person’s life is settled in death, at the close of their earthly activity. Thus everyone is judged and reaches his or her definitive destiny after death. But their final place in the whole can be determined only when the total organism is complete, when the passio and actio of history have come to their end. And so the gathering together of the whole will be an act that leaves no person unaffected. Only at that juncture can the definitive general judgment take place, judging each one in terms of the whole and giving him or her that just place which they can receive only in conjunction with all the rest.
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Israeli War Crimes
October 30, 2009I didn’t talk much about it at the time, but the Goldstone report issued a damning indictment of Israel’s behavior during the most recent Gaza war. As noted at the time by Catholic priests on the ground, Israel’s actions amounted to war crimes. Its policy of blockade amount to collective punishment and “a systematic policy of progressive isolation and deprivation”. During the war itself, “the Israeli military operation was directed at the people of Gaza as a whole, in furtherance of an overall and continuing policy aimed at punishing the Gaza population, and in a deliberate policy of disproportionate force aimed at the civilian population”. There was also a deliberate policy of denying Palestinians “means of subsistence, employment, housing and water”.
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Sometimes I think Randall Terry is Really Working for the Abortion Lobby
October 28, 2009His latest stunt is to call for the burning of effigies of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi on Halloween. He claims this is in the great American tradition. That’s good, because it goes completely against the Christian tradition. Besides, being a Catholic for only five minutes, he clearly would not understand the profound anti-Catholic undertones of burning effigies around this date. Honestly, is Terry really trying to push more and more people into the pro-choice column? It would seem so. And it makes a certain amount of sense – his political grandstanding depends on it. Terry and NARAL need each other in the same way as Bush and Bin Laden needed each other.
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Wages and Health Care Costs
October 26, 2009Let’s jump back into the health-care debate. Let’s talk about costs. If you tell people that healthcare spending is out of control, they will probably think about what they can see visibly — which is spending on the government’s books, such as medicare and medicaid. You can see the spending and you can see the cost – either in taxes today or taxes tomorrow (debt). But, as I’ve pointed out before, this is not the main source of healthcare spending. Spending on private sector healthcare is rising at a faster clip than public healthcare spending, and has been for some time (7.3 percent versus 4.6 percent for the average annual increase in premiums over the past decade or so). Let’s go back further — if insurance premiums had risen “only” as much as medicare spending since 1970, they would be a third lower today.
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Sarah Silverman and the Pope
October 18, 2009Courtesy of Fr. James Martin, I came across Sarah Silverman’s anti-Catholic rant in which she tells the pope to end world hunger by selling the Vatican – and promising him that, among other things, the involvement with the Holocaust would be forgotten. Regular readers will be aware that I’m not exactly Bill Donohue’s biggest fan, but it is at times like this that I want to be become the next Bill Donohue. For the point is basically correct – it is perfectly acceptable to attack Catholicism in a way that is not the case with other religions.
The point of this post, though, is not to point out how dumb Silverman’s argument is – as Fr. Martin points out, the pope cannot sell the Vatican, as it belongs to the Church, not to him. And that the Catholic Church is the single biggest provider of health care and social services in the world. No, the point of this post is to point out the hypocrisy of Silverman’s smugness. Silverman is Jewish. Perhaps she needs to look a little closer here. Perhaps she needs to ask why a group of her co-religionists feel that they have a unique right to their own secular state, and to deny human rights to (and commit war crimes against) the non-Jewish inhabitants of that territory. Look to your own backyard first, Sarah, before pointing out the moral flaws of the Catholic Church.
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Interesting Bobby Kennedy Story
October 14, 2009It’s well known that Bobby Kennedy was quite devout. I would also say that his Catholicism inspired his politics more so than any other American Catholic public figure in recent memory. But did you know that a very young Bobby was the one who first raised the red flag about Fr. Leonard Feeney, subsequently excommunicated? Apparently, Bobby was one of the young men drawn to Feeney’s Boston circle, and went to hear him speak regularly. But Feeney’s approach to salvation troubled him, and he asked his father if it was true that all non-Catholics were automatically damned. Joseph P. Kennedy said he must have misunderstood, that the priest could not have meant this, and if he was really worried he would put in a call to “Richard” and ask him to talk to his son. Richard, of course, was Richard Cardinal Cushing, friend of the Kennedy family. Bobby was indeed worried, and did go to see Cardinal Cushing. Upon hearing what Bobby reported, Cushing immediately sent some people to Feeney’s talk. Upon verifying what Bobby had told him, he banned Feeney from speaking, the first step towards his excommunication.
I think this is a cute story. It has no point really, and it may well be highly exaggerated, but it is a nice story. The source is Teddy Kennedy’s autobiography.
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First Things Thinks Torture is no Big Deal
October 13, 2009From “the Anchoress“, who I believe pretends to be a Catholic blogger:
“All indications are that the torture was very limited in scope and that -whether we are comfortable with it or not- information gleaned through waterboarding saved lives.”
Who cares about doing something intrinsically evil if it is not that evil, and if good might come of it? Consequentialism overcomes First Things. Surprised?
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Racism in the Church?
September 25, 2009Courtesy of Rocco, some very provocative statements from Memphis bishop Terry Steib:
“I … know there is a subtle racism that still exists within our Church that leads to a mistrust of the Church among our young African American men and women. (snip)
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Worse Than We Thought
September 25, 2009Every new global warming study seems to paint a worse picture, with yesterday’s downside scenario as today’s baseline. Now it seems we might have passed the tipping point:
“Climate researchers now predict the planet will warm by 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century even if the world’s leaders fulfill their most ambitious climate pledges, a much faster and broader scale of change than forecast just two years ago, according to a report released Thursday by the United Nations Environment Program.
…The increase is nearly double what scientists and world policymakers have identified as the upper limit of warming the world can afford in order to avert catastrophic climate change.”
Remember, it is the low-income countries that will suffer most, from famine, from rising sea levels. Keep that in mind as the American right continues to insist on its God-given right to consume what it wishes, to drive what it wishes, evening opposing the most miniscule attempts at capping emissions. This is one of the gravest moral issues of our time.
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More Healthcare Hypocrites
September 21, 2009With the demise of Sarah Palin’s “death panels”, the opposition refuses to let go of the euthanasia canard. This time, the line is that the proposed Medicare cuts will lead to rationed care among those who need it most, and the elderly will be left to die. As the (so-called) National Right to Life Committee put it, the cost-saving measures in the Baucus bill will “gravely endanger the lives of America’s senior citizens”. Sadly, Archbishop Burke– clearly irked that many of his fellow Vatican officials are (understandably) favorable to healthcare reform – has jumped on the bandwagon, declaring that it is “not acceptable” for any kind of healthcare reform to withdraw treatment from the elderly or those in need.
21 Comments | Health Care, Healthcare, Morning's Minion, Politics | Permalink
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Down with the USA or Down with Russia?
September 18, 2009The Iranian peaceful protests against the regime live on. Have a look at the clip below – while the government buses prompt the crowds to chant “Down with the USA”, they instead shout back “Down with Russia”. And Ahmadinejad’s famous “Death to Israel” not getting the reaction it used to.
Let’s think about this. Can you imagine this happening under the Bush-Cheney presidency? Can you imagine this happening under a McCain presidency? I find it highly ironic that the usual “hawks” express their undying support to the Iranian opposition out of one side of their mouth, and endorse Netanyahu’s wild aggression out of the other side. And make no mistake, no Republican president would ever have opposed Netanyahu. Just something to remember. And Sarah Palin would have been praying for the end times…
11 Comments | Foreign Affairs, Morning's Minion, War and Peace | Permalink
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Cardinal Martino on Healthcare Reform
September 16, 2009In what is bound to make George Weigel paranoid, Cardinal Renato Martino — head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace — has expressed his thoughts on the US healthcare debate:
“The health of their own citizens belongs to the authorities, to the central government. And so I have been 16 years in the States and I was wondering why a big portion of the American people is deprived, have no health assistance at all. I could never explain this…
And you know that everywhere in the world it is a concern of the government first of all, and after there are possibilities also on the private sector, but those who are without anything… the central government must provide to that. So I cannot but applaud this initiative.”
Exactly.
31 Comments | Health Care, Healthcare, Morning's Minion | Permalink
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How to Make Progress on Abortion
September 15, 2009Now, more than ever, we are seeing the problems with the proposed solution of the American Catholic right – align with right-wing evangelicals and support the Republican party so that they can select certain judges to overturn Roe v. Wade. The problem is, like Icarus, you might fly too close to the sun and come crashing down. Here, the sun is that package of Republicans beliefs and attitudes that have no place in Catholic social teaching. So we have some Catholics defending war, torture, and an aggressive and unChristian neoconservative posture in the world. We have more Catholics embracing all aspects of the theology of individualism, relishing in subsidiarity without solidarity, pushing to purge the government from all aspects of the economy, defending materialism and consumerism, and nodding toward a preferential policy toward the rich. As long as you don yourself in the prolife shroud, everything else is permissable. More damagingly, as the Republican party disintegrates into an angry nihilistic faction, so too does Catholic discourse deteriorate. And so in the eyes of the general public, the pro-life is seen as part and parcel of a bitter and angry cultural movement that mocks social justice concerns and opposes attempts to bring healthcare for all. These people are harming the pro-life cause more than any “pro-choice” politician.
38 Comments | Abortion, Morning's Minion | Permalink
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The Race Angle
September 14, 2009When I defended Obama last year, and argued that he was by far the better candidate, I annoyed a lot of people. But nothing provoked such ire as my suggestion that many of those who opposed Obama were motivated more by race than by abortion. And now, a year later, I think we need to come back to this point. For when I see the sheer lunacy of the right, especially when they protest, it seems that – deep down- they simply cannot abide a back president. Oh sure, there was the anti-Clinton nonsense, but it never reached this level of derangement.
Although you see the occasional pro-life message in the mix, this reaction has nothing to do with abortion. It has everything to do with Obama as the alien, as the man who should not be president, who is destroying the country with his anti-American policies. He’s a nazi, a communist, a terrorist, a socialist. He is trying to destroy the traditional American way of life. He is attacking freedom and freedom must be defended, with violence if necessary. If this sounds all too familiar, it is. These are the same attacks leveled against the civil rights movement a few decades ago.
77 Comments | Morning's Minion, Obama, Racism | Permalink
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The Verdict is in on the Bush Administration
September 14, 2009Forget about war and torture, we now have the definitive economic story of that sorry period:
“On every major measurement, the Census Bureau report shows that the country lost ground during Bush’s two terms. While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked. By contrast, the country’s condition improved on each of those measures during Bill Clinton’s two terms, often substantially.”
Details after the jump.
5 Comments | Bush administration, Economics, Economy, Morning's Minion | Permalink
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What Do I Think of Jim Pouillon’s Murder?
September 13, 2009I see how people on another Catholic blog are wondering why Vox Nova is treating this murder as a “non-event”. I won’t address the implicit assumption that somehow Vox Nova is a giant “borg” collective, with a nefarious strategy designed to annoy and befuddle “true” pro-lifers everywhere! I won’t address the point that the extremist tactics undertaken by so many in the political pro-life movement — and lauded on the right-wing Catholic blogs – seem to be pleasing a smaller and angrier choir, aligning the movement ever more closer to a political philosophy that stands sharply against the core tenets of Catholic social teaching, and turning off the kinds of people we absolutely must persuade if anything is to be done on the abortion front. Others here have addressed that quite well.
No, I want to talk about something quite simple. Murder is murder. The murder of a human being is an affront to the Creator, a most evil and wicked act, that can never be justified, whether we are talking about an abortion doctor or an abortion protestor. But if we really want to stop the murders, to stop the crazy extremists on both sides resorting to murder, the answer is simple – we need forceful gun control. We need to take the weapons out of the hands of those people who would – whether with malice or in passion – use them to kill people they disagree with. I’ve blogged about this ad nauseam. I’ve talked about how the US homicide rate is far higher than comparator countries and how that can be traced to the widespread availability and ownership of guns, particularly handguns. So if we want to get serious, I urge all Catholics to push for rigorous gun control. Let us all support the USCCB on this matter, which has been making this argument since the 1970s, calling for an eventual ban on handguns. Let’s put aside the individualist ideology and constitution worship for a change, and help save lives. And stop dodging the real issue. Gun control now.
24 Comments | Gun Control, Morning's Minion, Violence | Permalink
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Quote of the Day – Postwar Christian Democracy
September 11, 2009“Christian Democracy avoided class-based appeals and emphasized instead social and moral reforms. In particular, it insisted on the importance of the family, a properly Christian theme with significant policy implications at a time when the needs of single-parent, homeless, and destitute families had never been greater. Thus Christian Democratic parties were ideally placed to capitalize on virtually every aspect of the post-war condition: the desire for stability and security, the expectation of renewal, the absence of traditional right-wing alternatives and the expectations vested in the state – for in contrast to conventional Catholic politicians of an earlier generation, the leaders of Christian Democratic parties and their more radical younger followers had no inhibitions about enrolling the power of the state in pursuing their goals. If anything, Christian Democrats of the first post-war years saw free market liberals rather than the collectivist Left as their main opponents and were keen to demonstrate that the modern state could be adapted to non-socialist forms of benevolent intervention”
– Tony Judt, A History of Europe Since 1945.
2 Comments | Economics, Economy, Europe, Morning's Minion, The State | Permalink
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